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Secretary Wright Touts New Texas Refinery, SPR Exchanges, and Next-Generation Nuclear Milestones on Glenn Beck

July 30, 2026 · U.S. Department of Energy · 0:13:55

Embedded from the source channel — never re-uploaded. Watch on YouTube

What happened

Secretary of Energy Chris Wright discussed energy policy on the Glenn Beck Program on July 30, 2026, according to the Department of Energy broadcast of the interview. Wright said a new refinery for light sweet crude is planned in South Texas — the first new U.S. refinery in more than 50 years — though he said it would take a few years to build and would not move gasoline or diesel prices near term, as stated in the interview (transcript via auto-captions).

On the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, Wright said the Biden administration sold 200 million barrels, and that his department is exchanging rather than selling barrels, projecting the administration will finish with 40 million additional barrels in the reserve at no cost to taxpayers, with exchanges beginning to refill it at a meaningful pace the following year, according to his remarks.

Wright rejected the claim that data centers are driving electricity prices up, saying states with the fastest demand growth have had the best price performance, and he cited a Georgia district that eliminated property taxes because data-center tax revenue covered them, as stated in the interview. On new technology, he pointed to a 500-megawatt next-generation geothermal plant under construction in Utah and said four next-generation nuclear reactors had reached sustained chain reaction by July 4 — ahead of the three-reactor goal President Trump set — with electricity from remote reactors expected by the end of the following year and meaningful scale by 2028, according to his remarks. He was dismissive of hydrogen’s economics and said the administration is rolling back appliance and fuel standards so consumers can choose, as stated in the interview.

Why it matters

The interview is a progress report on the administration’s energy build-out — refinery, reserve, geothermal, and nuclear milestones — and Wright put dated numbers on several of them.

Scoreboard watch

Wright’s checkable claims include the projection of 40 million additional SPR barrels via exchanges at no taxpayer cost, four next-generation reactors reaching criticality by July 4 against a three-reactor goal, and electricity from remote next-generation reactors by the end of 2027 — all dated items for the scoreboard editor.

Sources: U.S. Department of Energy, “Secretary Wright Joins the Glenn Beck Program—July 30, 2026”, 2026-07-30 (official upload, embedded above; published 2026-07-30). Transcript via Supadata (private research store, paraphrased and attributed, not republished). All figures and characterizations as stated by the speakers.